Mr. Bailey [president of Local 2865] told fellow members that organizing could often take a long time, saying that it took nearly two decades to change California law to allow academic student workers to organize.

“We all know that the industrial sector is flying away to right-to-work states, where it’s going to take time and big-time financial resources to win campaigns,” he said, referring to states with laws that do not favor unions.

This is why the unions need to spend big money on recruitment:

The union is about to lose thousands more members in manufacturing. Ford Motor and General Motors want to reduce their hourly work forces by 60,000, and suppliers represented by the U.A.W. also are cutting jobs. Delphi, G.M.’s largest supplier, plans to close 21 of its 29 United States plants by 2008 and cut its hourly work force by thousands

So. High costs of labor is forcing many employers to lay off union workers and move to non-union states. The solution: follow them to non-union states and force them to keep paying ever higher wages. Sounds like a winner to me.